Jackie Thompson: February 2007 Archives

The bigger and heavier you are (or at least, the aircraft you are operating) the greater the savings you are going to make from Vancouver International Airport Authority's decision to cut landing fees for international passenger and cargo flights to match charges for domestic services.

Vancouver is bucking the general trend of airport fee increases, which have received so much criticism from airline bodies in recent years.
The new rates, effective since the beginning of the year, mean that cargo operators flying Boeing 747 freighters into the airport will pay 32% less in landing fees this year than they did in 2006.

The annoucement chimes with stipulations in open skies agreements such as that between Canada and the USA that require international and domestic landing fees to be the same.

The unusual thing is that the authority feels that it is a sufficiently strong financial position to be able to reduce international fees rather than increase domestic ones to even them out.

"This is a strategic move to help increase Vancouver's competitive advantage and stimulate related growth and economic benefits for the region," says chief executive Larry Berg.

Normally reserved easyJet chief executive Andy Harrison does not usually go for the sort of publicity stunt favoured by Virgin's Richard Branson or Ryanair's Michael O'Leary. Such is the strength of his carrier's antipathy to the doubling of the UK's air passenger duty, however, that he is obviously prepared to ham it up to make a point.
Passengers arriving at London's Gatwick Airport today would have seen the head of easyJet dressed as a "Man from the Ministry" and clutching a briefcase labelled "Tax Collector". 

Travellers at airports all over the UK have been faced with demands for payment for the additional tax - levied without Parliamentary approval to boost Chancellor Gordon Brown's treasury coffers in the guise of a "Green tax" on flights that they had already booked and paid for.
"As the government has, in effect, made easyJet the tax collector, this is exactly what the airline has done today," says easyJet.
So well done Andy, for letting your hair down and getting stuck into the publicity merry-go-round.